


Blair and Trust

by Foodmoon



Series: Reasons for Trust [3]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Angst and Humor, Betrayal, Gen, Implied Relationships, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Theft, Trust, non-graphic mentions of death and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 08:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13520238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foodmoon/pseuds/Foodmoon
Summary: Blair trusts Jim. Probably...





	Blair and Trust

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are mine.

Blair trusts Jim. No, really, he does.  
  
He never thought he’d say that of a pi- er, cop. Not the way he’d grown up. But he trusts him. The big man is gruff and ridiculously angsty sometimes even if he won’t talk about it. Apparently talking about it is against the p- the cop code or something. Or maybe not, as other cops seem to have no problems talking. Maybe the whole ‘silence is strong’ thing is just Jim. Really, Jim’s given him every reason to trust him.  
  
He’s never harmed him, at least not on purpose. He’s too straightforward to be malicious. Blair is in his head enough to be sure of that. Well, okay, there was that time that idiot perp thought harming Blair would make Jim back down. **That had not been a well thought out philosophy.** As a Sentinel, Jim is naturally, aggressively protective of his Guide. (Even if he makes it really obvious that he wishes that he didn’t need a Guide.) Jim had gone ballistic, and Blair had ended up holding him back from killing the idiot so he (Jim, not the idiot) wouldn’t lose his badge.  
  
_The things he does for his Sentinel!_  
  
As a kid, he’d have been delighted to see a pig, er, cop lose his badge. It would have been an epic justice thing. Jim, though; he stops murderers and violent drug rings and other things that bring people harm. Letting him lose his badge would’ve been no sort of justice. Which is sort of why they are here. Facing the paparazzi.  
  
A pack of wild dingos, Megan had said only half sarcastically.  
  
Because Blair trusted and trusts Jim enough to give up years’ worth of research to protect him. He trusted Jim to make that sacrifice worthwhile.  
  
But he’d trusted his mother, too.  
  
And-  
  
Naomi had never betrayed him before.  
  
Sure, she’d dragged him through some sketchy places, a few of which had given him reason to be very glad that Jim was firmly hetero-sexual. Sure, Jim sniffing him, and licking welling blood off of minor cuts a few times was weird, but it wasn’t anything that would trigger memory-induced panic attacks like a more sexual interpretation of intimacy between Sentinel and Guide would’ve.  
  
But even those things hadn’t been Naomi’s fault. She’d made a point of making those bastards extremely sorry for their misconduct. It’d always been them against the world.  
  
Now, though. Even Naomi had betrayed him. Not some to ‘stick it to the pigs’ thing . No, she’d done it for the money. _The money!_ One of the things that had always been against her philosophy.  
  
So, here they were. Even though he’d given it up once, now he was going to have to deny his life’s work as lies. In public. To the dogs of the media, who would make sure everyone knew he was a liar. _He wasn’t a liar._  
  
_And Jim was going to do nothing to stop it._ Jim had no reason to stop it. His career hung in the balance, after all. But.  
  
He doesn’t know what to do, what to think.  
  
Facing the storm of camera flashes and shouted questions, he feels small and hunted.

~~~~ ~~~~~

Jim trusts Blair.  
  
It feels strange to think that. The smaller man is pretty much his anti-thesis. A scholar, a hippy, someone who accepted the mystical as if it were normal. Jim is almost certain the mystical is not 'normal'. Ghost-like wolves and panthers are not normal. He can accept that they are normal for shamans and backwater jungle tribes, but for the avg., modern man? Surely not. There’d be scientific proof by now if it was. But he does trust Blair.  
  
Jim doesn’t trust a lot of people.  
  
His father had been- Well, he’d driven his sons to succeed by setting them against each other, and his younger brother had always seemed to win those contests. His distrust had gotten worse after the plane crash. Oh, not because it had taken so long for the government to find him. It was hell locating something in the jungle, after all, and the transponder had been damaged in the crash. He just let people believe that, because the truth was worse.  
  
The pilot and two others had died on impact. Four of them had initially survived the crash. The medic, Brody Carson, had been severely injured, but they had tended him as best they could. There had been no chance that he’d survive long without rescue and medical services beyond basic field first aid, but they had tried.  
  
That had lasted two interminable days. Right up until Loren Johnsten and Derrick Howell had tried to murder Jim.  
  
In retrospect, Jim could say that it was his own stupid fault. He’d just wanted Loren to take a break, maybe get some food and water into him, instead of hovering over Brody like a mantling bird of prey. But Loren had been showing all the signs of a newly online Sentinel worried over his Guide, and Jim hadn’t recognized them. He’d pushed it down, made himself forget. _He should have remembered._ But intent hadn’t mattered. Loren was so far gone that he only saw Jim as a bigger threat, a bigger predator invading his territory, threatening his Guide and had reacted accordingly.  
  
Unfortunately, Howell had recognized Loren’s reaction (fighting to protect, to defend) but not _why,_ and had joined him without question in attacking Jim.  
  
And Jim had forgotten, but he wasn’t dormant, he wasn’t latent, he had just _repressed._ And maybe Loren hadn't been so wrong. Because it turned out that he was the better predator. He'd only been fighting to survive, fighting on split second instinct, but it had ended up with two comrades dead at his own hands. When he’d quit shaking enough to check, Brody Carson had already slipped away from life. Either just before or during the fight. He’d felt like a cold-blooded murderer as he’d buried the three, fighting baffled guilt and his own flaring senses. And he hadn’t trusted anything after that, until a local tribe had coaxed him out of the jungle like a feral cat and taught him control.  
  
After returning to civilization, he knew of course not to trust the Army with what had happened. Being experimented on was so not his gig, so he’d gotten out. Even so, his trust levels haven’t improved much in the meantime. He mostly trusts Simon, because he can literally smell the man’s sincerity and his hatred of crime. The man cares. It is a good thing in a boss, even if he is a mother hen. He can even call him a friend. He more or less trusts most of his coworkers, but never anyone fully.  
  
Until Blair.  
  
The little man is a bigger mother hen than even Simon. (And how in hell someone could be a hippy, a scholar, _and_ a mother hen, Jim doesn’t know.) He has always helped Jim, even at hurt to himself. No matter if he is hurt, or scared, or angry, he still puts Jim’s well-being first. He’d even given up his precious thesis after Jim had pointed out the damage it could do to his career. Even though he’d been raised to hate cops. (Even though the man can’t be quiet to save his life. Literally.)  
  
But now. Now Blair is going to give it up all over again because of his bitch (even his own father wouldn’t have stooped so low, so don't judge Jim for the opinion) of a mother. Even though Jim would step up and help him handle breaking the news that it is all real, if only Blair would ask. Because Blair is his Guide, and he’d been realizing that he’d been maybe a little unfair to him over it all, and this is Naomi’s fault, not Blair’s. Blair shouldn’t need to suffer for it more.  
  
However. Blair does not look right. Jim begins to realize that maybe Blair won’t ask, after all. That he feels like he can’t, _and-_  
  
Jim stepped forward, pushing Blair behind him, leaning into the mic _**and-**_  
  
The room goes dead silent for a moment. An instinctive reaction to the low, visceral growl that reverberates threateningly through the speakers.  
  
_“You’re upsetting my Guide. That is not acceptable.”_ Jim is aware that his voice is just as threatening as the growl, but there is little he can do about that. He feels like these people are threatening his Guide. _“If you want answers, you will ask them one at a time. Politely.”_  
  
The first to recover is a young reporter from some out of town channel that Jim didn’t recognize. “S-So. Wha-What’s it like being a Sentinel?”  
  
“Like being any other trained professional. Except with autistic senses.” Jim replied in a dry tone.  
  
“So all Sentinels are like trained professionals?” A woman reporter asked in a mocking tone.  
  
Jim narrowed his eyes at her. “If we follow that train of illogic, all left handed red heads are professional soccer players. That road leads to Hitler, so let's not go there. More seriously: No. Of course not. I am a trained professional. Being a Sentinel doesn’t make me _not_ a trained professional, any more than being a Sentinel makes every other Sentinel a trained professional.”  
  
He hears a faint sound behind him and relaxes a little. Giggles from Blair are a good thing. Unmanly, but good. And it's not like the kid ever seems to worry about being manly in the first place.  
  
“And in your opinion, what is a Guide like?” An older woman, this one from a local channel, asks in a formal tone.  
  
Jim snorts. “Basically the person who can spot that you’re having a bad day even faster than your mother. And then will hover and try to fix it until you cheer up just to make him stop. Also good at talking autistic senses to death until they behave again.”  
  
That brings laughter. And a protest from Blair. “Hey, man!”  
  
“Gonna try to deny it, Chief?” Jim doesn’t have to look to know Blair is flushing.  
  
“I’m not _that bad!”_  
  
“Yeah, you really are, Chief.”  
  
More laughter. Laughter is probably a good sign. Reporters tended more to ‘hungry bulldog’ than laughter in Jim's experience. “Officer Ellison. I notice that you aren’t letting Mr. Sandburg answer questions.” A sharp faced older man from a national channel challenges.  
  
Okay, maybe he’d been too optimistic. “That’s because he’d try to say something stupid.” Jim grouses without much thought. Open mouth, insert foot.  
  
Blair smacks his arm and tries to get around him to speak as well.  
  
“Like what, Officer Ellison?” the sharp faced reporter persists.  
  
Jim’s panther blocks Blair. There are gasps and exclamations from the reporters, and several of those onstage with them squawk and scramble away. Jim eyed his panther in surprise, and answers in a contemplative tone. “Probably some nonsense about making it all up.”  
  
“So you’re using Hollywood holograms to try to ‘prove’ that Sentinels and Guides are real?” Another reporter asked scathingly.  
  
Jim gives the man a thin smile. “Disregarding the fact that you think the Cascade police department is both rich enough and willing to use CGI equipment to foist a con off onto the public is _hilarious-_ Maybe you should get a doctor to check your mental health? Whether you believe fact or not means absolutely nothing to me. Blair had already put aside his thesis and has begun work on a different topic, because he worried that publishing it might affect my job. He’s _that_ kind of person. _Naomi_ Sandburg stole the thesis upon learning that he did not plan to use it and then sold the publishing rights to it.”  
  
“You expect us to believe that Mr. Sandburg’s mother _stole_ from him?” some thin girl, who looked three times as intelligent as she sounded, asks with the utter scorn that only teenagers can do properly. _(How is someone that young a reporter anyways? Had she faked her ID?)_  
  
“Aww, man, make him stop!” Blair complains, trying to retrieve his sleeve from the panther’s mouth with no luck.  
  
“I don’t think so, Chief. He’s doing a good job of keeping you there.” Jim shoots him an amused look, then turns back to the reporters. “In reply to your question, I’ve had three cases just this year where someone _murdered_ their own child for money. Last year I had seven cases where that happened. What makes _you_ think that a parent wouldn’t ever steal from their child to make a profit?”  
  
“Is it true that Guides can read minds?” some reporter he can't see (young/male/who?/glasses- someone moved briefly) asks.  
  
And that's... probably not a good question to hear. Not good at all. Not with that thread of fear and avid horror behind it. Jim is getting really tired of this press conference. It should be over now. He _wants_ it to be over five minutes ago, but if this is what it takes to protect his Guide, he'll suck it up. “Are you kidding? If he could read minds, he definitely wouldn’t keep trying to replace my coffee with tea and make me eat broccoli. Grass water is not my idea of a good drink, and broccoli-” He shuddered dramatically. “For most people, Guide’s don’t pick up any more than someone observant could pick up from body language. He can feel if someone’s having a super shitty day, but he can’t tell _why_ they’re having one. It’s a bit stronger with me, but only because it helps him know when my senses are freaking out. A Guide’s not going to get a good read on anyone’s emotions other than his Sentinel’s. And mind reading is a nice thought- I mean, who doesn't want to be able to do that? But unfortunately, only science fiction is that convenient.”  
  
“I’ve got a question for Mr. Sandburg.” the older, dignified reporter lady asks. Smart. Jim can't pretend it isn't addressed to Blair and talk over him. Not without making it sound like the sharp faced reporter was right to imply that Jim is preventing Blair from talking to the press because there's something to hide.  
  
“I’ll answer!” Blair yells, leaving off trying to free himself from the panther’s grip on his sleeve.  
  
“What is it that a Guide really does for a Sentinel? If it’s just talking to him until his ‘autistic’ senses settle down, wouldn’t anyone be able to do it?”  
  
“Well, that’s a bit hard to explain. Kind of like this guy here.” Blair runs a hand over the panther’s head, making it twitch its’ whiskers in annoyance. “See, traditionally, Guides become Shamans. Of course, in modern civilization that’s not the case, but the gift is still there, you see? Sentinels just don’t respond to people who aren’t Guides as well. Theoretically, yes, anyone could talk a Sentinel out of a zone. But a Guide can let the Sentinel separate himself from the pain enough to start dealing with his senses, where a normal person can’t. So really, it’s a lot harder for a normal person to talk a Sentinel through settling his senses, and the Sentinel has to go through a lot more pain in the process. And-”  
  
Jim sighs and pulls him over to the mic so he won’t have to shout. Blair doesn't seem to notice that the panther has released him and disappeared again. The press conference goes on, because of course it does. Dammit.  
  
But.  
  
Blair trusts Jim. And Jim trusts Blair. Enough to act on it.  
  
Nature has a balance. Between life and death. Between mother and child. Between Guide and Sentinel. It doesn’t, exactly, take trust to work. But it takes trust to work _right._  
  
And right now? Nature is in balance once again.

**Author's Note:**

> Still very new at this.  
> Thanks for reading.  
> Two days and five fics in, formatting is still a mysterious beast.  
> I know it's rough, no need to tell me.  
> And ugh, yes, I see that it went and switched tenses partway through. I may bother to fix that at some point.  
> Kudos and comments welcome.  
> Editing comments are fine, but please be gentle.


End file.
